by Scott Seier
Hael looked at the lycandruid curiously. "No need to be modest Will, your class is incredibly powerful, and your mastery of it is improving with every fight." Will waved off his words. "Nah, I'm not disputing that specifically. I'm talking about the Yeti. And yeah, it's a Yeti, not a bigfoot. The Lycan can apparently tell the difference." Everyone just accepted this. Mysterious messages from alternate personalities produced by an AI, no need for alarm...
"The Lycan was being a huge pain in the ass when the yeti and manticore showed up. He only ever does that when he senses a real challenge. Something that he feels could actually threaten him." Will looked at me and grinned. "That's how I know that Lyst here has become the most deadly of all of us within the last few hours, and that the dust cloud that he uses is way more dangerous than anyone thinks."
I froze. Well, that is not ideal. I underestimated his instincts... Vigil said, slightly perturbed. I glanced at Gleer who was smiling at me, her expression beaming "I told you so" at me as loudly it was as if she was yelling. Hael and Billy were both staring very intently at me. They both had the same look on their faces that Milenta had when she thought I was a spy. Hael especially had almost the exact same expression. Stormy eyes under furrowed brows. A slight defensive forward tilt to his head, and a subtle tensing of the neck and shoulders. Weirdly similar. Weird unless...
I took an involuntary step backwards. Everyone tensed, except Will, who now looked worried. Billy went so far to lay an hand on her bow that was slung over her back. Will moved between me and the agitated huntress. "Hey! I didn't mean it like that! I just meant that he's been hiding what he is really capable of for some reason. He can probably go up against any of those guys and come out of it better than most of us."
"Not really helping big guy." I muttered as Billy set a hand on one of the arrows that poked out of her quiver. I knew that she could shoot before I could ever hope to counter.
His face was now a perfect mirror of Milenta's distrust. "Hael, I'm not a damn spy, stop looking at me like that, and tell Billy not to kill me." Hael's eyes widened slightly. "I never said anything about a spy Lyst." I snorted. "Well, your sister made the same face when she thought I was a Thorgood spy, so forgive me for seeing the resemblance. I'd like to avoid making a permanent vow of honesty with you like I did with her."
Hael looked thunderstruck. Everyone else just stared at me dumbly. Billy snarled. She spun on her leading heel and slammed the hilt of her dagger into the base of Will's skull. I suddenly felt guilty that I'd let him stand between me and her. She used her momentum to spin again, around the already unconscious and teetering Will. She dropped her dagger, drew her bow, nocked an arrow, and fired before the knife had fallen more than a foot
Vigil took the arrow easily, compressing a small portion of himself and shattering the steel head of the projectile, then reconfiguring a different part of himself into a compressed blade and speeding towards Billy, who was already readying her next shot.
It was Gleer who came to my rescue, or Billy's recuse if you take into account Vigil was about to skewer her. Instead of any unneeded violence, all three of us, Vigil included, found ourselves instantly encased in ice.
When I say encased, I mean completely. The ice was stunningly clear, but my own body heat clouded the the surface that surrounded my face within a few seconds, effectively blinding, as well as completely immobilizing me.
After a few shaky, literally, minutes, the ice fractured all around me, allowing my body to move several inches in every direction, then it fell away from me completely, like a frosty flower blooming to reveal...me! And what I sight I was. My whole body was wet, cloths and all, from the brief melting that my body was able to produce, and I was shivering violently. Billy seemed to have no such problems. Well, she was soaked, but not a single chattering of teeth could be heard coming from her. Maybe her survivalist specialization gave her cold resistances?
Vigil shook himself free of the ice, and returned to my arm where he resumed his gauntlet shape. Billy was still watching me closely, but Hael was the one I was focused on. The rogue turned to the huntress with a kind smile. "I appreciate the sentiment Billy, but I don't think that was a threat." Billy relaxed a few notches and let the grip on her bow loosen slightly. I, on the other hand, tensed in response.
"What?" I said stupidly. "How could that have been construed as a threat?" I shot this at Billy, but Gleer answered for her. "You know... we sort of accused you of being a spy, then you conveniently bring up one of Hael's family members. The plot thickens even further if his sis happens to be in the real world. Then you're suddenly folded into the whole cascade conspiracy, and not just inter guild shadow wars."
I stared blankly at everyone. Wow this had gotten out of hand. I shot a dirty look at Will who had the good sense to look really guilty now that he wasn't unconscious any more. "Sorry man." He said softly. "I wasn't threatening anyone, his sister is in the game, she..." Hael took a quick step in front of me. "THAT, will do Lyst. I like to keep my family matters very separate from my every day activities." He widened his eyes and tilted his head. Message received. They didn't know him and Milenta were related, and he didn't want anyone to know. Noted. Didn't get it, but noted.
Hael stayed put, right in front of me. He looked into my eyes carefully. "So you met her?" I just nodded. Not sure what I was allowed to say in front of others. "And you set up an honesty contract with her?" I nodded again. Hael smirked. "Well, that works for me then. If she cleared you then you're clear. No arguing with that. Although, I have to warn you, being beholden to tell the truth to my sister at all times is a potentially dangerous position to be in." I shrugged. "We set up decent ground rules. Like letting each other get out of questions that we don't want to talk about. She dodged one about you for instance." Hael smiled distantly and chuckled. "Yeah, she would do that, wouldn't she.." Then his eyes bulged and he nearly choked. "WAIT!" He looked half panicked, half elated. "She is contracted to you too? It goes both ways?!" I slowly nodded. The rogue let out a loud hoot of laughter. "That is frickin grand. Wow...well, I guess I've underestimated you in just about every way imaginable. I'm sorry about that." Hael eyed Will briefly, then turned back to me. "If the Lycan is worried about you, then I guess I was wrong to list you as the weakest in the group. I'll have to reevaluate a few things."
Just as Hael turned to move back to his position at the head of our semi-circle and continue our interrupted meeting, Vigil increased the pressure he was exerting on my arm threefold.
That didn't extend to my shoulder joint though. During the maneuver a loud pop told me that my joint had been dislocated. I staggered and winced. "Shit! Jeez, Vigil, what the actual hell. Warn a guy!" I winced again as I explored the damaged joint with my usable hand. "Shit, I'll need some help with this..." I glanced at the people around me, but the
y all looked like they were too shocked to move. "Fine.."
Vigil raised my arm to the point that I thought I was going to pass out, then just a little..bit... higher. There was another pop and the pain lessened substantially. What the hell was with this pain anyway? I thought the game muted it substantially, but that was nearly as bad as real life! I slowly moved my arm and sighed as I felt my spirit work to regenerate the damage. I stood there with my eyes closed for a while, enjoying the feeling, and when I opened them all I saw was the group still looking at me. "What? Never seen a dislocated shoulder before?" no one spoke, except Gleer. "Lyst? Is that iron sand construct actually...sentient?"
A lot happened after that. Hael took me aside to chat about the secrets I'd been keeping, along with restructuring my assignments for the upcoming fight. That was actually explained to me also. Apparently I was the last to know, but we were leaving. At least the five of us were leaving. "What do you mean? We've been fighting this war for hours now. Suddenly you just want to hoof it?" Hael at least was patient explaining the situation to me. "Look Lyst, things have changed, significantly." The rogue pointed to my iron encased arm. "That? The arrow that you just saved us from? Straight up assassination attempt. Which means they know who they need to kill. That being us, or even any of our information group." He waved at the four players now sitting in a tight circle, talking amongst themselves. Joe was apparently telling a light hearted story to the others. Laz and Agatha laughing happily, while Demetistics looked on with a small smile.
I had to admit that killing any of them, or Hael, would cripple our raid, most likely in a catastrophic way, but I still didn't get why we were leaving. Hael noticed my frustration. "It's like this. The enemy commander, this Grim guy? He is currently talking to his officers, just like I'm doing right now. He's getting information about us from the singer and the archer, just like we got information about them. Things are on a pretty even playing field right now between the two main groups in this conflict. Like it or not, the main players are our group, and their elite group. Now, Grim can't be too happy about that, mostly because I have more resources than he does, and I'm sure he knows that I've been bringing in mercs via portals. I've resupplied my people, I've gotten my guy's gear fixed, etcetera. Grim can't do any of that, at least our spies say that he can't. He doesn't have the infrastructure that I do. So that means one very undeniable truth. My raid is going to beat his raid. It's just down to how long it takes, and he and I both know it. So, if I was in his position, I would only have one choice..." Hael looked at me meaningfully.
"Go for the town with the strongest, smallest, force possible. Him and his elite group." I said, finally starting to understand. Hael smiled. "Absolutely. We don't know what he wants with the town, but he made clear his intention to get in there, so we at least know that."
I starting nodding. "Okay, so we are going back to the town, taking up defensive positions and waiting for them to show up. Then fight them, five vs five? Or five vs six, I guess." Hael was nodding too. "Correct. Which goes back to your assignments that I gave you before. If Grim joins the fight right off the bat then we may be in trouble, but if we can leverage some of our unknowns and get a few of their group down fast, then we can hopefully still swing a win." Well, now I was in full support of his plan to abandon our guys in the middle of the woods. No problem.
After a few minutes of further planning, and a large amount of low-level mercenaries being ported in, Hael gave his final set of orders. "Okay, I'm officially transferring command of my mercenaries and the raid to Agatha. She will be in command while I'm gone. I left my forecast for how I think the fight is going to go with her." He gestured towards the woman and she snapped to attention, then looked slightly embarrassed, and just nodded her acceptance of responsibility. Hael smiled at her antics. "If my prediction is even half correct, then they are going to bring a very large caster formation to bare at some point during the conflict." Hael turned to the leader of the mercenaries. "I need all of your support people ready to mitigate as much damage as possible, Agatha will command our stealth forces to sweep in and cut them down. You should only have to survive for about three minutes under the pressure. They are positioned close enough to react quickly, but far enough away not to be detected." The mercenary leader smiled confidently. "Three minutes should be no issue at all. Good luck with your jaunt." He spoke in an Australian accent and seemed to be more familiar with Hael than someone who was meeting for the first time should be. Hael smiled at the man warmly. Old friends for sure.
With all of that set up, Gleer worked a little of her special brand of ex machina magic and cloaked all of us in a minor invisibility spell before we set off for Four Flags. Walking through the path of destruction that our raid produced on the way here was surreal. Where there once had been dense forest with occasional clearings, there were now more openings in the canopy than not. Arrows littered the ground, and craters from powerful spells pock marked the area. Other than that, there were grave markers. Dozens, many dozens. I stopped counting after I hit seventy. They were everywhere, but at some points, were clustered in specific pockets. There was a spot where five markers were all jumbled together in the middle of a crater that still exuded a toxic looking yellow miasma. We gave that one a wide berth.
The whole trip was made silently, the weight of what we were doing building with every step. I knew it was just a game, but if we let the outlaws into the town then we could kiss our progression in this kingdom goodbye. Well, I could. Not for the first time I thought about how inviting the south was. No kingdoms, no royals, the player density was down to less than ten per square mile. Sounded like paradise at this point. I looked at the backs of the four people I was following. I decided that some players weren't that bad. I just hoped these guys gave it their all in the coming fight. Otherwise I doubted I would ever be able to group up with any of them again. The thought was sadder than I thought it would be.
You will still have me. I looked down at my arm and smiled.
Grim stood at the edges of the trees that surrounded Four Flags. He was still concealed under the ever deepening shadows of the day, but could clearly see out to the walls that he so badly needed to get over. The only problem was that five very unwelcome figures were standing, once again, between him and his objective. Grim turned back and walked a few yards into the woods. "He left his raid to deal with our guys and moved his group here to take us on directly." Grim noticed that more than one of his people picked up on the hint of respect that carried in his voice when referring to the enemy rogue that commanded the opposing raid.
"So what? You should walk out there and splatter them all over the walls! Grim, why don't you just kick their asses and be done with it?"
Siren was talking again... Grim sighed. He bent his knees and let himself fall into a comfortable crouch before he decided how best to answer. He wouldn't have bothered usually, but Yeti was eying him skeptically as well, not to mention when Manticore shifted he was barely controllable. Grim couldn't afford for them to doubt him. "In this world if you kill your enemy, they just come back. They always come back. The harder you put them down, the more assured it is that they will eventually come for you. And every time that you beat them, they learn more about how to beat you." Grim emphasized the last word. "The more times you fight someone the more likely it is that they will eventually buy, or develop an ability or skill that can wreck you. It only takes one good counter to end all your hard work. In here? In Acrion now? There is no out. There's no escaping this place, for now at least. So I'm forced to treat this as permanent. I'm forced to think years ahead of time. When I look out there, at those players, I see opponents. Some of which I will certainly come up against again at some point. I'm only powerful because no one has devised an effective counter. I'm going to keep it that way. BALE" Grim roared before Siren could open her mouth with a retort.
Bale melted out of thin air right in the middle of us. Even Manticore's nose hadn't picked him up. "At your beck and call." He said, bowing with a flourish. Grim took the sarcastic comment as a simple statement of fact. "Indeed. Your job is going to be to support your group from within the trees. It will be the five of you against the five of them. Simple as that. I'll be watching, but working to get the job done for the most part." Grim reached out and casually grabbed the front of Bale's robes, pulling him closer. "Bale. I know that you understand how important it is that you aren't captured or killed. I need you to help them, but nothing flashy. If anything draws attention to you then you're risking all of our futures in the game."
